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Help with a Smartphone |
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 Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 1:22 am |
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I'm looking to eventually upgrade to a smartphone. However I'm not an app freak and only require it to do to things: make phone calls and display .pdf and .txt files (with the express purpose of keeping a small digital library with me. Yeah small screen but I'll manage). It has to have a touch screen, and be as inexpensive as possible. I need little else beyond that. Do you have any recommendations based on those criteria? Or should I just bugger off and get a cheap phone and an e reader?
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'I wanna introduce you to a personal friend of mine. This is an M41A pulse rifle. Ten millimeter, with over-and-under thirty millimeter pump action grenade launcher...'
Tech illiterate, slowly learning, please excuse.
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| Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 1:31 am |
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If you are going to use it for only what you have described then it'd be better to get a cheap phone and an eReader.
If you think you'll end up doing more with the phone then look at getting an Android based phone, these vary in price and cpu power.
_________________
I analyse and I verify and I quantify enough
100 percentile no errors no miss
I synchronize and I specialize and I classify so much
Don't worry 'bout dreaming because I don't sleep --
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| Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 2:02 am |
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Once you get an android phone, you'll find plenty of other things to do with it. Trust me. There are a few fairly cheap but quality ones out there. You should go to a local phone store and ask them what phones were state-of-the-art and best-selling, like, 6-10 months ago. they should be pretty cheap by now but powerful enough. You probably won't mind not having the latest version of the OS.
_________________
Knowledge is power.
Information seeks freedom.
A Cyberpunk short story written by yours truly
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| Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 2:09 am |
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Aye, I could care less about latest and greatest, I care more about reliability and thrift. So far my research has been driving me towards a Droid, and you guys seem to agree.
I'm not gonna lie, one of my biggest reasons for wanting a touchscreen smartphone is so I can rig up a wristband mounted housing for it. 
_________________
'I wanna introduce you to a personal friend of mine. This is an M41A pulse rifle. Ten millimeter, with over-and-under thirty millimeter pump action grenade launcher...'
Tech illiterate, slowly learning, please excuse.
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| Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 2:24 am |
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I've got an Acer Liquid E that I'm really happy with.. rooted and running a custom T&L Gingerbread-like rom.. totally stripped down, removed bloatware, etc.. It's the Android equivalent to TinyXP with a skin.
the screen isn't massive, but I've been using it to read books also, and I can't see any problems that someone would have.. for something that's around 3.5", it's running 480x800 resolution, and it's fucking CRISP as hell. Literally, the only difference is the screen size - the fonts are the same size as in a novel, and the letters actually look smoother and more "perfect" on this thing's screen than on a printed page. It's really stunning to see, to the point where the first thing I tend to show other people when showing them the phone is how good text looks.. Forget the games, the apps, transitions, videos, etc.. Ebooks on this thing look better than paper imo.
I'm using Aldiko as an e-book reader, and it works great, though with a smartphone, you're not gonna want to use PDFs.. Text should be fine, but I've gotten a preference for ePub.. A well formated ePub looks incredibly good.. PDFs tend to need lots of zooming and panning around, even when they're OCR'd.
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| Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 2:31 am |
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What's the going price on these Liquid E's? I'm aware of the issues with .pdfs and small screens, but most of my digital library is in that format. Alot of it is for technical reference on various subjects, and I would LOVE to be able to carry that with me constantly.
_________________
'I wanna introduce you to a personal friend of mine. This is an M41A pulse rifle. Ten millimeter, with over-and-under thirty millimeter pump action grenade launcher...'
Tech illiterate, slowly learning, please excuse.
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| Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 2:32 am |
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I have the milestone, equivalent to the droid. Sure the performance freak in me would like that shiny new dual core android, but my milestone still does an awesome job (and survived one or two crash I thought would kill it).
Use Calibre to convert ebooks to and from a whole bunch of formats (pdf included). It can also manage libraries from any USB mass memory (including an android device and its SD card).
EDIT: To answer the previous comment and Screwhead's post, I would indeed recommend at least a snapdragon processor. the droid does show its age and can't multitask as well as a 1Ghz processor.
_________________
Knowledge is power.
Information seeks freedom.
A Cyberpunk short story written by yours truly
Last edited by KBlack on Tue May 10, 2011 2:43 am; edited 1 time in total
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| Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 2:40 am |
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I tried using my phone to read ebooks and it just didn't work well. But phone has a low res screen 320x480, so a higher res screen might do the trick. Arnt the acer liquids real cheap now?
_________________
I analyse and I verify and I quantify enough
100 percentile no errors no miss
I synchronize and I specialize and I classify so much
Don't worry 'bout dreaming because I don't sleep --
...
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| Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 3:39 am |
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I got the Liquid E for $375.. it's got a 1ghz Snapdragon processor, but underclocked to I think 768mhz to conserve battery life, and honestly it runs pretty much perfect.. I've had a few app crashes, but that was mostly due to using outdated versions and the bugs were fixed in more recent ones..
the phone does heat up, which is the only real down-side to it, but you get used to it after a while.. it's a little worrying at first, but it's pretty normal, and from what I've read, heavy use of the phone with all the radios turned on (3G, gps, wifi and bluetooth) it tends to average 30-40 degrees C when you're making a long call or doing some heavy browsing.. Keep the radios you don't need off until you have need of them and the phone takes longer to heat up and the battery lasts longer.
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| Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 12:06 pm |
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| KBlack wrote: |
Use Calibre to convert ebooks to and from a whole bunch of formats (pdf included). It can also manage libraries from any USB mass memory (including an android device and its SD card).
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That looks like an excellent resource. But how does it handle PDFs with lots of illustrations and diagrams? I was under the impression dedicated ebook formats only really play nice with plain text.
_________________
'I wanna introduce you to a personal friend of mine. This is an M41A pulse rifle. Ten millimeter, with over-and-under thirty millimeter pump action grenade launcher...'
Tech illiterate, slowly learning, please excuse.
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| Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 5:47 pm |
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| WireWulf wrote: | | KBlack wrote: |
Use Calibre to convert ebooks to and from a whole bunch of formats (pdf included). It can also manage libraries from any USB mass memory (including an android device and its SD card).
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That looks like an excellent resource. But how does it handle PDFs with lots of illustrations and diagrams? I was under the impression dedicated ebook formats only really play nice with plain text. |
Mmhh. I don't know. I encourage you to try it yourself and report back. the software is free after all.
_________________
Knowledge is power.
Information seeks freedom.
A Cyberpunk short story written by yours truly
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| Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 8:01 pm |
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| KBlack wrote: |
Mmhh. I don't know. I encourage you to try it yourself and report back. the software is free after all. |
Done. Converted a test file to several formats including .epub. It ate the images, so no dice.
_________________
'I wanna introduce you to a personal friend of mine. This is an M41A pulse rifle. Ten millimeter, with over-and-under thirty millimeter pump action grenade launcher...'
Tech illiterate, slowly learning, please excuse.
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| Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 7:18 am |
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I like Samsung S5830 Galaxy Ace or HTC devices. They are reliable, fasr, Android run. And the prices are lower than for iPhone, for example. Just for your needs.
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| Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 7:34 am |
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| WireWulf wrote: | | KBlack wrote: |
Use Calibre to convert ebooks to and from a whole bunch of formats (pdf included). It can also manage libraries from any USB mass memory (including an android device and its SD card).
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That looks like an excellent resource. But how does it handle PDFs with lots of illustrations and diagrams? I was under the impression dedicated ebook formats only really play nice with plain text. |
Illustrations (and pdfs made from a bunch of images containing page scans) is why i keep my eyes open for a 10" or larger android device.
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